I had no idea how exciting, and excitingly sordid, a small seaside resort town in Wales could be -- until Malcolm Pryce showed me the sleazy underbelly of Aberystwyth.

 

Malcolm Pryce is the creator of Louie Knight, as fine a hard-boiled gumshoe as any, but a nicer guy than most and mainly without a gun.  Knight and a teenaged-girl sidekick, the enterprisingly larcenous Calamity Jane (as a former enterprisingly larcenous teenaged girl, I liked her quite a lot), tour the reader through an alternate Wales populated by mystically secretive ventriloquists, racketeering druids, fallen spinning wheel models and apparently indecent tea cosies. 

 

Pryce's characters all have their own voices, well spoken and clear, they stand out whole and are interesting and engaging.  Some of them are so outrageous I found myself mentally (sometimes actually) shaking a finger at the page to say he couldn't do that, he'd gone too far!  Of course, he always went farther.  Others seem comfortably familiar, equal parts someone you know and over-worn stereotype, until Pryce sticks you with something that's not part of the stereotype but fits smoothly: the beautiful chanteuse who's a complete pig; the hunchbacked thug who keeps the town clock; the ice cream salesman who knows all.  His plots are breathtakingly convoluted and complicated and I was absolutely sure it could never be tied into anything that would make any sense and would have to fall on its face, but I was wrong.  Like a good rollercoaster ride, he careened all over hell and back and still brought me whole to the end, with all my stuff in my pockets.   Not Voltaire but well written and more fun to read, in a gleefully deadpan style.    

 

I wonder about the real Aberystwyth and its people.  Do tourists come and pester them for the location of that grimy nightclub where the waitresses wear stovepipe hats and not much else?  Do they have to patiently explain that there are no druids there and no magical land under the water beyond the shore?  I hope they've all read these books and have copies at home, preferably proudly signed. 

 

 

GB

His website is linked here.